Proud owner of a 2002 Protege5. It will serve as a second car/winter car for me. only has 67,000 miles! just about everything works. I only have a few small issues with it:

the A/C appears to be working but the compressor likes to cycle on/off rapidly like every 5-10 seconds. Maybe it's because it's cold outside?

Due to the low mileage I'm pretty sure it has the original timing belt. at 67k do I need to change it soon? what is the official interval for timing belt maintenance? and is it easy to pop the valve cover to inspect it?

It passed inspection before I bought it because I bought it from a used car dealer. I plugged in a OBDII reader just for kicks and it shows 8 "monitors" and only 4 of them were "ready" the incomplete ones were Catalyst, EGR, O2 and EVAP. I've been driving it around probably close to 50 miles already I wonder if I need more time to let it cycle. hopefully the inspector didn't "cheat" the inspection and CEL doesn't come on.

everything else works. I remember when they first came out and I wanted one but I was only 18 so I had no money lol.

 

Timing belt is due every 5yrs or 60,000 miles ( 100,000kms)